It was hard to get a word in edgewise – the constant chatter between Bruce and himself was a constant self-dialogue. It was as if all the personalities of the bodies he was composed of wanted to speak all at once. When she saw no pauses forthcoming, she butted in, “Hey, Bruce! We have incoming players who want to try to steal the Core. Get ready!”
Luckily, despite his obvious mental shortcomings, Bruce was able to stick to a task once he had one to focus on. He immediately turned toward the door and made his way to the middle of the large room. His constant self-conversation thankfully stopped, and as the Swordsmiths entered the room they all stopped and stared at the monstrous amalgamation of animated body parts facing them. They stood frozen, most likely speaking to each other in their Raid Chat. That was when the stench of the Undead Abomination hit them – almost all of them scrunched up their faces and held their stomachs as if they were in pain. One Healer in the back even vomited off to the side, splashing chunks on her fellow guildmates.
Suddenly, Bruce shocked them by speaking in a booming – but cheerful – voice, “Hello! It’s so nice to have visitors. What would you like to do? I love to talk – I could talk for hours. Unfortunately, if you are here to take the Dungeon Core I will have to kill you all. I hope you aren’t here for that, though – I don’t get many visitors these days. I think I have refreshments around here somewhere if you’re here to chat.”
The guild was speechless at this turn of events and they didn’t answer Bruce right away. He seemed to take this the wrong way, “Well, if you won’t even answer me then I guess you’re here for the Core. It’ll be a shame to have to kill you but that’s my job. Goodbye!” With this statement, he lumbered forward, intending to smash into the waiting players. Seeing the incoming lumbering monster, most of the players scattered and got out of the way. One Mage was standing still, looking at something only she could see – most likely some game menus. By the time she realized her predicament, it was already too late. One of the giant feet stomped down on her, flattening her against the ground. The first hit amazingly didn’t kill her – but the second stomp did the trick.
Bruce lifted his foot up, exclaiming, “Ewwwwww – that’ll take some time work getting all the blood off the floor. Why can’t you be bloodless flesh like a good undead?” He turned toward his right, where the raids’ tanks were starting to annoy him with their taunts and puny metal weapons. They didn’t really hurt since he couldn’t feel anything – undead don’t have the necessary components to register pain – but they were nevertheless a distraction. He started hitting the three Defenders and one Paladin in front of him with his numerous appendages, doing quite a bit of damage. The raid Healers did their job admirably by keeping their front line alive with measured heals, ensuring that they didn’t acquire aggro.
Once over their initial shock, the players showed why they were good enough to get this far. Their Rogues circled toward the rear of the Abomination, striking him from behind. They didn’t end up doing extra damage since Bruce literally had eyes on the back of his head. As well as his back, sides, and even a pair on one of his legs. Their Archers unloaded arrow after arrow into the writhing mass of rotting flesh, most sinking inside without noticeably doing anything. A couple lucky shots hit an eye or two, but Bruce had so many that it didn’t matter in the long run.
All these attacks did nothing to decrease the health points of the Guardian. The melee despaired when they saw they were having no effect, with everyone besides the tanks backing off and retreating until they found something to deal some damage to. It was only when their casters started slinging spells toward the Abomination that they saw some effect. As Ice Shards, Mana Bolts, and Lightning Shocks hit Bruce, his whole body quivered with each strike. Each attack did a very tiny amount of damage, so small that it would take hours of constant bombardment to have any real effect. Seeing that they were making some progress, if even just a little, the casters redoubled their efforts and started trying out different spells to see which ones would deal more damage.
Bruce, however, didn’t want to give them time to experiment. Their damage, infinitesimal as it was, overrode the taunts that the tanks were throwing his way and aggro shifted to the casters near the rear of the line. Since his forward progress was slightly impeded by the heavily-armored players, Bruce reached inside his body and pulled out a dozen globs of flesh that he then tossed toward the casters and healers. It appeared that his aim was off, and he only managed to hit a Healer in the leg as it bounced past the rear line – but that was never his intent. When the masses of flesh came to a stop behind the rear line – who promptly ignored them since they weren’t hit with them – they started shaking and morphing into small, 4-foot tall mini-versions of the Abomination.
Once they were all formed, they rushed toward the unprotected and unsuspecting backs of the Mages, Healers, and Sorcerers. Inflicting major damage in the first few seconds, the players retreated toward their front line, all the while switching their magical attacks to the smaller versions pursuing them. This time, their magical attacks had no effect. It wasn’t until one of the Mages smacked one that had gotten too close with this staff that they discovered that they were vulnerable to physical damage – unlike their big daddy.
The Rogues and Archers who had been holding back their ineffective attacks on the larger Abomination turned their attention to the smaller ones and started taking them out one-by-one. This took a while, since there were a dozen of the smaller Abominations and there was only a total of four players to fight them. Since they were taking some damage and were directly protecting the remaining casters, the Healers used their spells to keep them alive – to the detriment of the tanks still holding off Bruce. The Paladin went down, with no one to heal him, and the others started taking more damage since there were less of them now.
Eventually, the fight stabilized for the guild – the mini-Abominations were all killed, and everyone was able to focus on Bruce again. This, of course, was when he used another one of his special attacks. Instead of hitting one of the tanks again with one of his fists, he instead picked up one of the Defenders and stuck him inside his rotting, corpulent body with a wet, slurping sound. Their guildmates could see their tanks’ health start to plummet dramatically, but they couldn’t see him to heal him. As he died, they saw his body slowly slide out from the bottom of the Abomination, as if he was a piece of waste being expelled.
One of the healers took the time to Resurrect both the Paladin and the Defender that just got pooped out – but found out too late that it was a mistake. Apparently affronted at these Resurrections, Bruce stopped attacking and stood still. As the ignorant players kept attacking, the Undead Abomination started violently shaking, his quivering flesh increasing in intensity as time went on. After 15 seconds, the violent vibrations suddenly stopped and a second later he exploded. Chunks of body parts exploded outward in every direction at a speed that literally decapitated a couple of players when the rotting flesh hit them. To the remaining players who didn’t lose their heads, the amount of damage they sustained killed all but one of the Defenders who was flung about 300 feet backwards and hit the wall on the other side of the room.
Apparently realizing something bad was happening at the last moment, the Defender had used one of his damage mitigation skills that left him at 5% health even after taking lethal damage. As he slid down the wall that he had crashed into, he looked up to see the rest of his raid party destroyed and, in some cases, laying in multiple pieces. Standing where the Undead Abomination previously was located, was a much smaller glowing figure that was hunched over as if in pain. It was similar in appearance to the mini-Abominations that had attacked earlier – only it was emitting an unhealthy putrid-green glow.
As the Defender got to his feet, he tried to use a potion to bring his health back up – only to find he had used his last one while the casters were being attacked. Seeing that he was the only one left, he ran for the door hoping that he could get out before he was hit again. It jus
t wasn’t his day, however, as just as he started moving so did all the pieces of the Abomination that were scattered around the room. Flying back with magical speed, each piece of flesh that hit the glowing figure attached themselves until it was completely covered up. More and more pieces joined the growing Undead Abomination until he was back to how he looked before he exploded.
Bruce looked around and saw the Defender trying to escape. “Hey there, I wasn’t done playing with you all yet – come here.” Swiftly moving to block the exit, he grabbed the remaining Swordsmiths player and stuck him in his body. Since he was near death already, it only took a couple of seconds before he expelled the player out of his bottom.
He paused for a second, looking for anyone else in the room, before he slowly started walking around in circles again, talking to himself. “They were nice enough, but why doesn’t anyone want to come see us?” “I know, it’s like ‘I want the Dungeon Core this, and give me the Dungeon Core that.” “Seriously, why does…”
Krista retreated from the room, ecstatic in her choice of Guardian this time around. Witnessing him in action relieved a lot of the worry she was having concerning the Dungeon Core. She hoped that it would be a long time before anyone found a way to kill Bruce – hopefully long enough that they could build their new dungeon floor.
Chapter 15
This first room only had the two Salamanders, so they headed for the next room with Max in the lead this time. Just as Devin was wondering about the change, he witnessed the Rogue disarm a trap on the floor that he could barely see even when he got close. Noticing his curious stare, Max told him, “There were no traps on the first floor – they don’t start until you reach the second floor. Just make sure you let me go first because I have pretty high Detect Traps skill.”
Nodding in the affirmative, he followed her as they arrived at the next room. Like the last room, two lava flows were on opposite sides of the room, with the center being clear of the molten earth. The only difference was an increased amount of Lava Salamanders, twice as many to be precise. They still only came one at a time and they were as easily defeated as the others. This is pretty easy so far, Devin thought.
The next couple of rooms doubled the amount again – and then again. By time they reached the fifth and final room before the floor boss, the 32 Lava Salamanders came in waves of four at a time. Devin was tempted to use his Freezing Rain spell but held off due to the warning Mac gave him earlier about killing themselves with steam. Instead, he used his Entangling Roots spell to keep one in place for a time. Unfortunately, due to the plant-like nature of the roots, they were weak to fire-based creatures. Each time he caught one of the Salamanders they only ended up being entangled for about five seconds – which was about a third of its normal duration.
This still helped significantly, since they were able to take out the other creatures in just a couple of seconds. Bolt3n also used his Crippling Shot skill, which greatly slowed down one of the lizards that was approaching, leaving it for last. Only once during all the fights did a Salamander actually get close enough to use its fire-breathing skill – which Domn3r reflected with his shield before removing its head from its body in a single critical strike.
Devin couldn’t help thinking about how this fight would have gone down if they were more equal to the level of the dungeon – it would have been a whole lot harder. As it was, Domn3rs’ party was barely putting forth much effort to kill everything that was thrown their way. Even Devin, with some practice and fore-knowledge, thought that he could solo through this part of the dungeon if he was forced to.
After finishing off all the mobs in the room with a minimum of trouble, they headed toward the floor boss. As they entered, Devin was starting to recognize a theme relating to the bosses in this dungeon. Before them was a large pond – lake would be too big of a word – of lava in the center of the room. Domn3r led the way, running ahead in order to be the prime target for what they saw poking out from the center of the pool.
If the other Lava Salamanders were the size of a walrus, the Mega Lava Salamander (Level 25) was the size of a double-decker bus – only longer and wider. Devin watched as Domn3r used his Shield Rush skill to bash the Salamander as it poked its head out of the lava, stunning it momentarily and causing massive amounts of aggro toward the Defender. He then ran toward the corner of the room, thereby making the boss leave the lava and follow the annoying human. Once it reached him, everyone else started laying on the damage so Devin followed suit with Ice Arrow and Flurry.
Its health dropped quickly and within 15 seconds it was at 20% -- that’s when it turned around and made for the lava pond in the middle of the room. “Don’t let it get in, it’ll regenerate and heal most of the damage we just caused,” yelled Ambrose. Devin immediately cast Entangling Roots while Bolt3n used Crippling Shot to slow it down. The roots were even less effective against the boss compared to its smaller brethren, but for this it was enough – the giant lizard collapsed in death only halfway back to the pool in the middle.
“Nice job everyone – that was the quickest I’ve ever seen that done – at least personally. I’m sure there have been higher level players who have come through here and done it faster, but every group that I’ve been in here with allowed it to regenerate at least once per battle. I’m just glad we didn’t have to worry about that this time. Let’s move on,” Domn3r told them all, after they had looted the corpse of the Salamander and popped open the Floor Chest.
The third floor was very similar in makeup to the first two, with another new mob to battle against. This time they were facing flights of Small Fire Drakes, which were basically small dragons the size of a Golden Retriever – but with wings. They had very strong and sharp-looking claws on both their hands and feet and could lob fireballs toward the party from a short distance away, as well as breathe fire when in close.
Devin enjoyed fighting against these since it allowed him to practice his accuracy on a quickly-moving target. He started at first with just regular arrows, trying to get a feel on how the small Drakes moved through the air. After missing the first ten times, he began to see a pattern in its movements – it would hover in the air for a short time when it was going to lob a fireball. Once he realized this, he waited until it stopped moving and hit it with an Ice Arrow. The arrow lodged in its throat just as a fireball emerged, causing it to fall harmlessly straight down below. The critical strike was enough damage to instantly kill the flying creature and Devin watched ecstatically as it plummeted down.
This also gave him the opportunity to inadvertently try out his Sidestep skill. As he was focused on the Drake he had just slain, another one lobbed a fireball in his direction and the skill automatically triggered. He felt his viewpoint change slightly and saw that he was standing a couple of feet closer to Ambrose. Confused, he looked around as he saw a fireball pass through right where he was standing a second ago. He looked in the air and watched as Bolt3n filled the last Drake with three arrows fired in rapid succession. “Thanks,” Devin shot toward the Archer. That was close – at least now I know what that skill does.
The group pressed on, finding themselves in the same situation as the other floors – more rooms with greater quantities of Fire Drakes. Devin continued to improve his aim and was able to finally hit the Drakes while they were still moving through the air. Only one other time did he have to utilize his Sidestep skill – a stray fireball aimed at Domn3r was deflected in Devin’s direction from behind. All in all, however, the floor was just as easy as the previous two.
The boss for this floor was a bit different from the others – instead of one gigantic Fire Drake, there were two near-giant Drakes. The two Huge Fire Drakes (Level 26) divided the parties’ attention by flinging fireballs from different directions. Not only were the fireballs larger than their smaller brethren, but they exploded upon contact and generated additional splash damage. The method that the group used was to have Domn3r grab the attention of one Drake and move away by himself while blocking th
e flaming projectiles. Ambrose would heal him while the rest of the group concentrated on the other boss – with Bolt3n as the target. The Archer had high enough Agility that he was able to avoid the fireballs heading in his direction and was a good enough shot that he was able to fire on the run. Devin and Mac then added their own supporting fire and the Drake – which was not as hard to hit as the smaller ones – fell rapidly. Once it was down, they concentrated fire on the remaining Huge Fire Drake and killed it quickly without much trouble.
As they arrived down on the fourth floor, Devin was excited to find out what other kinds of creatures they would encounter down here. He was slightly disappointed – thinking he’d find some sort of Fire Elemental or something else along those lines – when all he saw were humanoid-looking figures covered in red, green, and black scales. As he got closer, he noticed that they looked like upright-walking dragons: reptilian-shaped head and face, clawed hands and feet, and a prehensile tail following behind.
“Watch out for these – they are sentient, so they’ll give you a run for your money if you’re not careful,” warned Maxinista. Devin looked at them closer and saw that they were called Hearthfire Dragonkin (Level 25). I hope that means that I can use them as a playable race – that would be quite the change. The group approached the first of these Dragonkin and Devin got even more excited as he witnessed a pair of wings unfolding behind its back. They can FLY! Oh my god, I want one! he thought.
Too engrossed in dreams of flying and attacking enemy players from above, he missed it as the Dragonkin launched into the air and flew straight at the party. Fortunately, the veteran players comprising the rest of the group were ready for it. Domn3r taunted it to catch its attention and Devin watched, distracted, as it dived straight for the Defender with a steel sword leading the way. The tank was knocked backward from the impact but was able to stay on his feet as he pushed back at the mob. Once he was on the ground, Max could finally utilize her skills and used her Backstab skill on the unsuspecting Dragonkin.
Dungeon Guild: A LitRPG Dungeon Core Adventure (Glendaria Awakens Trilogy Book 3) Page 9
